The Unitarians!

Well I got a pretty big shock this week when I had my interview with President Seal last Friday. He told me that he was thinking about closing Mountain Home down for a little bit and taking the missionaries out of it because we aren't getting any support from members. We have worked so hard and have gotten 140 otm's every week for five weeks strait and we don't even have one baptism date! This transfer is a testimony to me about how much member support is important to missionary work. It's not that we are two hard missionaries to get along with, it's just the fact that our ward has gone apostate and is coasting till the second coming. They have gotten weary of doing good things.

Our area is being shot gunned or white washed; meaning both missionaries are being taken out at the same time and two new ones are being put in. I am going to Fort Smith, Ar and I am serving with Elder Harrison again! Man I am so pumped about it! I have a way sweet video of getting the transfer call that I will send home. Elder Clinger is going to Tulsa and will be split training a new missionary and will be a new district leader as well, what a lucky guy.

My new address is:
Elder D Kelly Conrad
300 S. 16th St
Fort Smith, Ar 72901

Everything has dropped this week, people have been calling us and cancelling appointments and we have been struggling to teach lessons, but we are still working and doing our all. We set an all time high of 165 otm's in one week for this area and I'm pretty sure that no one for a long time will be breaking that record.

This transfer has taught me so much, it has taught me to ask Heavenly Father for things and to work for what I have asked for. It has taught me not to hold anything back because if I do, so will Heavenly Father.

I did get the Dear Elder letter from Joe and it helped. The Unitarians were nice, a lot of them were people who were sick of other churches and being forced to believe a certain way without being told why. Elder Clinger and I stood up in front of 15 people and taught them for 30 minutes on Heavenly Fathers plan for us, how we are His children and how He had the earth created for us and then we went into agency and how Jesus Christ was part of the plan in helping us overcome our agency and disobedience to Heavenly Fathers commandments. After we taught them we had 30 minutes to answer questions. All of their questions were searching questions, they asked about the organization of the church, temple marriages, priesthood, blacks and the priesthood, baptism for the dead and some other little things. The Spirit was there and we answered all the questions perfectly. I could see that several of the people were more prepared than others, for example we talked to this man named Larry who was a catholic and if you know any catholic they either go to church and are way committed, or they don't go to any church because they hate churches; kind of like in-active members of our church. But anyways, Larry told us his story and how he joined the Unitarians and how he raised his kids to be Christ like. I really like him and I'm sure if we hadn't gone to that Unitarian place we would have never talked to Larry because if we had knocked on his door he would have slammed it in our faces, at least that is what he told us he would have done. I'm not going to be able to see much of the effects from teaching the Unitarians but someone will. It was amazing when talking to these people to hear about how they almost all had children, or family who had joined the church.

I don't have much else to say, this week has just been one huge lesson for Elder Clinger and I about how if we are going to have success here in the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission it is going to be because we are exactly obedient to the commandments, mission rules and not holding anything back.

Love,
Elder D. Kelly Conrad